Ivan Pirozhnik

The aim of the article is to determine the structural and spatial characteristics of the development of the tourism sector in Poland, its economic importance and trends in shaping the spatial structure at the macro-regional level. The main issues are focused on analysing the level of development of tourist functions at the level of Polish voivodeships (NUTS-2 regions) and shaping their market types in the period of evaluation development and changes in the crisis period caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The basic research assumptions include the analysis of the processes of shaping tourism in the macro-regional system at the level of the national market of 16 voivodeships in the pre-pandemic period (2013–2019) and in the conditions of the pandemic crisis (2020–2022). To assess the level of spatial concentration of tourism development elements in the macro-regional system, the Herfindahl-Hirschman index and the discrete index were used, and when assessing the level of effectiveness of using the tourism potential of regions, a coefficient of the value of the obtained tourist services was developed in relation to the capacity of the accommodation base and the number of employees in the tourist service sections region. Based on methodological approaches to the concept of spatial and functional analysis and considering the types of market regions in the country, an assessment of their tourist functions’ rank levels is presented. This evaluation takes into account the characteristics and features of the development processes within the tourist space.The conducted analysis justifies the definition of the spatial organization of the tourism economy and the recreational development of geographical space as a dynamic process of shaping the internal spatial structures of the tourism sector, the development of its main elements and factors along with a set of external dependencies and links between the functional types of regions of various ranks and the entire socio-economic complex.

Considering the tendencies of economic development of Belarus during the economic transformation, such as the slowdown of GDP growth rates in recent years and the increase of the volume of external debt, the search for various sources of investment resources for the implementation of the economy modernization program is required. The transport and logistics system of the country, connected to the pan-European geo-economic space, is characterized by dynamic development with a significant segment of transit traffic. The dynamics of freight traffic, volume and structure of freight turnover of the main modes of the transportation system (rail, road, inland waterway, pipeline, air transport), as well as efficiency and development trends in the transit cargo segment are being analyzed. Significance of the Trans-European transport network corridors as the main directions for multimodal transit flows is explained. Such issues, as dynamics and structure of cargo transportation in railway transport (as the main element of the cargo transit system), dynamic development of road transport, reduction of transit via pipelines, stagnation of inland water transport (with significant potential of waterways), increase in navigation transit in air transport are explained and disclosed. Operational peculiarities of the Belarusian logistics centers, their spatial concentration in the regions of the country, as well as the nature of the barriers limiting their effective operation are presented. With advantageous geographical location and a high level of transportation and logistics complex development, Belarus has a significant potential for expanding its  export and transit functions by joining the global and regional cargo transportation routes between global (Europe–China) and regional (EU–Russia) geo-economic centers.